Pennette mimosa

Penne with zucchini, shrimps and eggs
Our original home cooking

Penne with shrimps, eggs and zucchini is a great first course for summer, season of zucchini (courgettes). You can eat hot or cold. I used, in realizing them, the well known zucchini-shrimp combination, but I added crumbled hard-boiled eggs too. Excellent dish for your family menu but don't make it too often, it's full of ingredients! It's a recipe for your special occasions too. Pair white wine as I explain below.

Recipe for penne with shrimps, eggs and zucchini

Preparation and cooking

- Thaw shrimps.
You need about 2 hours.
If you are in a hurry, you can plunge the bag with frozen prawns in water.
In this case you need only an hour.
Change often the water to accelerate their thawing.

- Boil eggs.
Boil eggs for 8 minutes.
Remember transfering eggs from the boiling water into very cold water, this step helps loosen their shell!

- Prepare pasta sauce.
Meanwhile pour olive oil in a large saucepan.
Add leeks and zucchini.
Saute for 10 minutes on very low heat, stirring often.
Then increase the heat and pour in wine.
Let it evaporate.
Add a ladle boiling water (or vegetable broth).
Season to taste with salt and cook on medium heat until your mixture thickens and vegetables are well cooked.
If necessary add other water (cooking time: about 15-20 minutes).
A minute before turning off the stove add dried herbs.

- Prepare pasta and shell eggs.
Meanwhile cook penne "al dente".
Shell eggs.
You have to separate whites from yolks.
Crush all the yolks with a fork and crumble all the whites in a large bowl.

Just before serving

- The last step.
Drain your penne very well, transfer them together with shrimps to the saucepan with the sauce.
Stir with a wooden spoon over high heat for 1- 2 minutes to flavor all the ingredients.
Stir with delicacy.
This is the secret for an authentic Italian pasta dish: to finish cooking pasta in its sauce!

- Place pasta on individual plate and serve immediately.

- If you like, you can garnish pasta with fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped.

- Prepare penne with shrimps, eggs and zucchini to be served cold 1 hour ahead at least.

Note

Tips

- You can also use other short pasta shapes (fusilli, rotini) or wholemeal pasta or felt or kamut pasta.

- For a quicker recipe: grate your zucchini (courgettes). You will reduce cooking time. In fact in this case you haven't to add any water or vegetable stock to the sauce. Grated zucchini require few minutes to be cooked.

- The best season to prepare pasta with zucchini, shrimps and eggs (penne mimosa in Italian) is from June to October when you can find fresh and tastier zucchini and fresh aromatic herbs.

Menu planning

- You can plan this pasta dish as one-plate meal in your weekly menu or as a course in a full menu for a special occasion together with other courses. In the last case the doses are enough for more people (10-12).

- You can serve this pasta dish cold too! Enjoy it at your BBQ with your friends for a perfect menu, Italian-style

Healthy eating

- Obviously this dish, rich in ingredients, is a perfect one-plate meal. Complete your meal with fresh fruit but if you are still hungry you can also add raw vegetables such as bell peppers, carrots ...)
Here are the doses per head: 60 to 70g (2.1 to 2 1/2 ounces) short pasta, 1 medium-size zucchini, preferably 3 to 4 quail eggs or 1 hen egg, 70g (2 1/2 ounces) frozen shrimps, 10ml (1/2 fluid ounces) white wine, 70g (2 1/2 ounces) leek, aromatic herbs and less than 2 teasppons olive oil. As you can read I use less than 80g (2.8 ounces) pasta, suggested by the nutritionist, for there are a lot of ingredients. It's a satisfying dish in any case!

- It's a tomato-free recipe, ideal for people intolerant or allergic to tomatoes.

- I remember you my original home recipes can be made without salt; there is a combination of flavors that substitutes salt.